


Glimpses

by J_Bell



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Awkwardness, Drabble Collection, F/M, Falling In Love, Married Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 22:17:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7072669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Bell/pseuds/J_Bell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose and Tentoo, the first six months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glimpses

 

He holds her hand and the ground is suddenly back under her feet. She glances up at him – God, he’s tall. Is _he_ really that tall? – and she sincerely hasn’t got a clue as to what happens now. 

“Oh, that’s just _lovely_ ,” Jackie says exasperated. “Your father’ll take two hours to get here, and the tide’s coming in! Soon we’ll be up to our shins in water!”

The Doctor cracks a smile at her. “Jackie Tyler. Can’t believe I actually missed you!”

Jackie stomps her foot on the wet sand. “Oh, you bum. Come ‘ere.”

And her mother is hugging the carbon copy of the love of her life. Hugging the Doctor. Not _her_ Doctor, but, she supposes, her Doctor. What a headache.

“Rose?” he turns back to her with a heart-splitting grin. “Come here too.”

She’s shaking, for some reason, but she does. These might just be the worst two hours of her life.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

They turn out not to be so terrible. He has tons of things to tell her, all he’s done since they had last seen each other, everyone he’s met, everything he’s seen, how much he’s missed her.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to remember he’s not _her_ Doctor.

She’s thankful for the Zeppelin, though. She’s had enough of this beach to last a lifetime.

He keeps talking all the way back to London. In fact, he just won’t shut up. At all. She doesn’t think he used to be this annoying.

Her mother, bless, points this out. The Doctor frowns. “I s’ppose it’s my human bit. You know, the Donna-part.”

Something of what she felt – _what?_ – must have shown on her face, because he then grins at her in that way that makes her hate herself. He launches into a monologue on how weird it feels to be human and she wants to jump from the Zeppelin.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

En flight to London, when she starts paying attention to his babbling, she finds him overanalyzing having destroyed the Daleks – which she thought had been quite a feat, something to brag about, really.

“I’m him,” he concludes horrified. “The Valeyard.”

“Who?”

“The evil me. Who couldn’t regenerate. I’m evil.”

Rose rolls her eyes. “You’re not evil.”

“How do you know?”

She surprises herself when she fondly ruffles his hair – which by this time is already pretty, delightfully, spikily messy. “You’re the Doctor, aren’t you? My Doctor.”

The lie puts a tear in his eye and a grin all over his face when he hugs her tight. It feels the same. He feels, smells the same. Yet when he kisses her she knows this is a new man. One she can maybe learn to love. To like. To live with. To…

“How I’ve missed you, Rose Tyler…”

To kiss. Definitely to kiss.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

That night at her house, wine flows freely. She doesn’t usually drink, but today she feels it’s only natural she gets absolutely besotted. She feels like a failure and wants to _kill_ this aggravating man who looks like _her_ Doctor.

Pete lays a hand on hers when she starts refilling her glass yet again. “Haven’t you had enough, sweetheart?”

She glares at him. Jackie refills all the glasses on the table.

The Doctor’s tipsy, too, which is a sight – she’s never seen him drink before (still haven’t, she reminds herself feebly, still haven’t), it’s illuminating. He’s telling them what a lovely person Martha Jones is, and how disgracefully he used her, and how thankful he is that he’s now in a universe in which there is _no_ Master.

“…You don’t suppose he’s out there, though? Maybe he is, hold on!, who’s president now? Not Saxon, is it?”

“Another bottle, mum. Please.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Are you okay, sweetie?”

Rose snorts. “I must look something awful for you to be calling me ‘sweetie’.”

Jackie sits by her on the floor. “I mean it, though. How are you feeling?”

A glance at the sofa and the thin man crashing on it, and a sigh. “I don’t know. Sad. Confused. It’s not _him_. It’s not. And yet…”

“That’s not my Pete, either,” Jackie gestures with her cup of tea. “But at the same time, it is. And I love him. It’s an odd way to right things, but there it is.”

Jackie is drunk, too. That kinda takes the magic out of this bit of motherly wisdom.

But Rose keeps gazing at that man. That skinny, under-dressed man (where’s his _tie?_ ), that angular face, that soft hair, that curving smile tugging at the corners of his lips. It’s the alcohol, but she wants to kiss him and doesn’t know when she started caressing him.

“…Rose?” he mumbles.

“Yeah?”

He smiles. “Good. I thought it had been a dream.”

She kisses him then.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

First order of business – her father insists – he needs to exist in this world, he needs fake documents. That is what the Doctor is currently starring at in disbelief.

“Doctor John _Tyler_?”

His voice is particularly high-pitched at the last word. Pete for some reason does not even blink.

“John’s a fairly common name, and we managed to get you a degree in–”

“Tyler?” he repeats weakly, as if he hasn’t heard a word.

Rose shudders at her father’s indulgent smile. “Isn’t that how it works?”

The Doctor shoots her a mildly scared glance (which has her reflecting that that’s _certainly_ how it works and that she should probably tell her parents that, having known him for about 24 hours, they aren’t ‘together’ by any loose definition of the word), and then shrugs philosophically.

“I suppose…”

She can’t help asking, “What?”

“I had kind of thought about taking you on a date first, maybe get a proper ring and even go down on one knee – if you fancy that sort of thing – but I suppose the fake ID will have to do.”

Slowly, painfully so, she smiles, tiniest bit of smile, but she tries for one. “I’ll take you up on that date thing.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

For their first date (or so her mother calls it), she takes him out for chips and they walk round town so he can spot the differences between the London he knows and the London he now lives in.

She’s surprised to be doing most of the talking. All of the talking, in fact. By the time they reach the London Eye his silence has her bothered.

“What’s wrong?” she asks softly, rubbing a hand on his arm.

“Nothing,” he says, but doesn’t look at her. She calls his bluff and he sighs sadly. “You’re unhappy.”

She owes him more than a flat denial, but less than the truth. “’M fine. ‘S jus’ chilly.”

He surprises her (really, though, it shouldn’t) by wrapping his arms around her. He’s trying for sweet, but his shoulders are tense, and that’s when she realises this is unbearable for him, too.

They hold each other for a while, then get on the Ferris wheel to look at the city from above. The night sky is clear of Zeppelins for once, she can almost fancy herself at home when she grabs his hand. He kisses her then, and it’s the first kiss they share in which they’re both feeling the same way.

“I miss the TARDIS,” he admits, and a string of similar truths follow. Rose begins to think that, maybe, this, them, might just work.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

They wander back to the mansion quite late and there isn’t a single light on when Rose pushes the front door open. The Doctor’s call for “Anybody home?” goes unanswered, too.

“Where d’you think they’ve gone?”

He shrugs. “Out, apparently,” he says scratching his head and smiling awkwardly. “Your mum’s nothing if not subtle.”

Rose can’t remember the last time she blushed – perhaps the first time his Northern accent called her beautiful, Cardiff, 1869 –, which she does fiercely now. The Doctor is quick to try to babble her into a semblance of ease.

“Not that I’m suggesting – which isn’t to say I wouldn’t _love_ to – Rose, I –“

She shuts him up with a kiss – their new pattern, she decides –; a kiss which tells him she’d also love to. More than love to, in fact. Tonight? Tonight; might as well. Bedroom, before his TARDIS-blue boxer briefs end up on her parents’ couch.

“Rose Tyler, you’re bloody brilliant.”

She wills herself to get carried away. “I love you, too.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

 “This isn’t how I pictured it.”

The murmur is soft-spoken, with a tinge of bitterness, perhaps, and it raises a wave of disconnected thoughts in her – he’d _pictured_ it? what does he mean, _it_?

Rose manages a monosyllabic “…Hmm?”

The Doctor sighs against her hair. “Thought it’d be in the TARDIS. My room. While we drifted through the Time Vortex. Forever.”

Rose frowns, and he can tell she’s more than just mildly offended. It crosses her mind to be mad at him, to get up and throw a pillow at him and have a fit – that if she, if _normal_ ain’t enough for him, then he can just… just–

Her eyes tear up instead. “Yeah. Me too.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

He wonders if he’s broken, somehow; if the regeneration energy _did_ make him different, if he isn’t quite the Doctor he fiercely wants to be. He isn’t to her, that much he can tell.

Rose is still sleeping – in his arms, no less – but he feels a thousand light-years away. Her brow is furrowed, as if she’s having a nightmare, and no amount of caresses or kisses either wake or soothe her. He feels at a loss. How does he make this work? He remembers throwing the TARDIS manual into a supernova e being immensely proud he could fly by instinct alone, that running his fingers over the console was easy and thoroughly effective, simple; now he can’t seem to touch the woman he loves at all without making her flinch.

Maybe he should leave. No idea where he’d go, obviously, but at least maybe she’d get some peace. He wants to be selfless for her, has almost decided to, when she whimpers softly against his one heartbeat.

“…Doctor?”

“Yeah?”

Her expression softens, she holds on to him tighter and breathes in deeply – smelling him? How horribly human of her –, breaking into a smile, eyes closed. “Good. I thought you’d been a dream.”

He feels his lone heart break as he pulls her up for a proper good morning kiss.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

After THE (yes, she’s capitalising articles now; the situation is deserving of it) most awkward breakfast of her entire life – Jackie’s shins became purple from Pete’s kicking, the Doctor’s ears are still smoking pink from her mother’s remarks, and never mind Tony’s quite honest question of “ _Why_ we stay hotel las-night?” – Rose figures they’ve had enough staying in. Time to go to work.

“Work?” he asks her as she drives them away from the Tyler Mansion. “You mean Torchwood?”

“Yes,” she grins, and it’s probably the first time in days she means it. She can’t wait to show him the Hub, everything she’s built, achieved, and so starts – _really, Rose Tyler?_ – babbling away about their operations, functions, ideas.

He’s sceptical, however, until she pulls up in front of Canary Warf; then his look changes to complete, utter disbelief. She kisses him quiet before he can open his mouth. “Come on,” she tells him, “I’ll show you ‘round.”

His disapproval lasts until he exits the lift onto their floor and takes in the round structures on the walls, the large, blue-ish central column of light, the huge worktable brimming with alien technology around it.

He gapes until it turns into a grin as manic as hers. He picks her up by the waist, lifts and twirls her, kissing her deeply when she comes down.

“Like it?” she asks coyly.

“ _Welllll_ ,” he says rolling the L thoughtfully, “it’s not _bigger on the inside_ , but it’ll do.”

She swats at him playfully for that.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

The next few days, “love” is his word. He loves his new job, loves this new world, loves picking Tony up from school, loves having dinner with her family, loves her mum’s tea, loves _her_ , his dearest, most lovely Rose Tyler – and just won’t shut up about any of it, too.

Forty-eight hours after the first “love” he’s staying up all night in front of the computer and won’t tell her what he’s up to. The new word is “obsession”. She tries to be supportive and give him his space – a noble decision she sticks to for about twenty-three minutes after first light – and finally decides to peek over his shoulder.

“…Why are you googling ‘Martha Jones’?”

He looks like a child caught shoplifting candy. “No reason. I… I just…”

“What? Miss old companions?”

The panicked look on his face says he’s not sure what answer she wants to hear, which is frankly what makes her mad. She turns to leave with an angry huff, but his next sad, somber remark gives her pause. “It’s got nothing to do with you, Rose. I just wondered if…”

“What?”

“…if they’re better off without me.”

The idea doesn’t even fit her brain. How could anyone’s life not be better by having had the Doctor in it? With a sigh he tells her of the storm he wreaked through Martha’s life and about Donna, all she would lose ( _had lost_ ) because of him, all _he_ would have to take away from her.

Rose decides to join in the late night googling.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

They find Martha first.

She works for the NHS in London, is married to paediatrician Thomas Milligan and expecting her second child – they had adopted a boy during their last year working with the Red Cross. There isn’t a blemish on her CV or personal history, she’s the picture of health and wellness – there’s not a whisper of aliens, monsters, UNIT, demeaning work or time travel.

The Doctor takes his glasses off, biting one end. “Blimey.”

Rose stretches. It’s three in the morning, she’s been up for almost 24 hours and she cannot make out if he’s smiling or horrified. “She seems all right.”

“It’s just so… so…” he flicks through the page again. “ _Ordinary_. So bloody ordinary. Martha’s brilliant. She–“

“Doctor,” Rose interrupts kindly, pulling up a picture of the Milligans. “Look at her. _Really_ look at her. She’s happy.”

And she is. Undeniably so. She’s finished her studies, seen and helped the world, met a nice bloke, adopted a child, would have another; Martha Jones-Milligan is happy and the last thing she needs is him meddling in her life again.

“Okay,” he tells a weary Rose. “To bed with us.”

“What? That easily appeased?”

She’s biting her tongue, smiling at him as if he’s said or done something remarkably _him_. Funny, he hadn’t meant to.

“No,” he answers truthfully. “But sleeping on it might help. We’re not done.”

“C’mere,” she takes his hand and tucks them both in. Tomorrow – in a few hours – they’d continue looking for Donna.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Go on, then. Tell me.”

Rose looks up from her tea. “Tell you what, Mum?”

“Oh, don’t play smart with me, Rose,” Jackie snaps – as she hasn’t in a while; can’t say it’s been missed. “You know bloody well what. It’s been a week.”

A week. Seven days. How can it have been only seven days? She bites her lip, lets the tea scald her throat. “’m fine. Great, as a matter of fact. Haven’t shagged so often in… well, _ever_.”

“And that’s making you happy?”

She blows the hair from her face philosophically. “Shagging’s great.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

She sighs, rolls her eyes, is certain her Doctor is behind the door to the kitchen listening in. Also, that Jackie won’t believe her. “Yeah. Yes. It’s just been hard… _adjusting_.”

She means listening to a single heartbeat, and still being stuck here, and no TARDIS, and his accent sounding off at times – “adjusting” doesn’t begin to encompass all that, although it’s just that. What else can she do, other than adjust?

“Maybe you just need a different pill. Have you tried–“

The Doctor, bless him, chooses this moment to interrupt this lovely mother-daughter mo. Rose has never loved him more.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

Their second date (to which he asks her, and it’s a welcome change) takes place a week after the first, and quite makes up for it. They go hunting for a flat, small and functional, with space for the library he wishes to amass and the distance from the Tyler mansion she craves.

They sit in a cozy café for the best part of that morning, newspapers spread on the tiny coffee table and tea and hot chocolate incoming. It feels… nice, normal even, which has them both gritting their teeth.

“Is this what’s to become of us, Doctor?” She can’t help wondering out loud. “Posh flat, Torchwood and tea?”

He seems torn between a smile and frown – “the one adventure” and all that sounds a lot more boring than it ever had.

Doctor Tyler settles for a shrug. “It’s still early. We could get a Zeppelin for Santorini and watch the sunset.”

Rose smiles. It’s not a meteor shower on Venus Major, but she supposes it’ll do.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

She’s sorting through paperwork – who would have thought chasing aliens involved so much boring stuff? – when her secretary places a pile of resumes on her desk.

“These arrived this morning, ma’am,” Ianto tells her. “I’ve selected the most eligible ones, but since all new admissions must go through you…”

Rose flips through the papers puzzled. “Who said we’re hiring a temp?”

“I– I thought the order had come from you, ma’am,” Ianto stammers. “I got the memo to scout up candidates in Chiswick, so–“

And suddenly it all makes sense. She smiles lethally. “Ianto, please tell Doctor Tyler I need a word.”

Not a minute later there’s a sheepish Doctor sitting in front of her desk. Rose stops short of shoving the resumes in his face. “ _That’s_ your brilliant idea for finding Donna? You want her to _work for you?_ ”

“For Torchwood, not for me. See?” he grins hopefully. “ _Temp_.”

“Yeah, that. Why do we need a temp?”

And it dissolves. “…because I thought you’d take exception if she were to be my personal assistant…?”

Rose has a momentary fantasy of firing him, he bloody well _deserves_ it.

“You’re right. I would. I _do_. This may look like a patched-up TARDIS, but it ain’t one. I’ve built this place from _nothing_ after you _abandoned_ me here; you can’t just _waltz in_ and go about inviting every girl you’ve ever met into it!”

A horrified pause. She looks as shocked as he does, though not half as hurt. The Doctor looks aghast, disconcerted. She almost apologizes for her outburst, but he beats her to it, walking out, a hand run over his face and hair, out, just out, and she’s a bleeding idiot for taking longer than five seconds to run after him.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

There’s a pink rose and a note that says “I’m sorry” on her desk when she comes back from the loo – she really needs to stop applying so much makeup to her eyes – and she almost needs to go again. She stares at both until he’s there again, again sheepish, no desk between them.

“I’m sorry,” she says looking up. “I didn’t mean those things, you know, about… the others, and the leaving part.”

He grimaces briefly, forcing on a contrite smile “No, I’m the one who should be apologizing. I never meant to go over your head, _boss_ ,” he adds with a wink, then takes her hand and kisses it. “I might remind you, though, that it was _him_ who ‘abandoned’ _us_ here. And I only ever meant to find Donna, no one else.” He sniffs. “I miss her. She was my best friend, I just… miss her.”

She feels her cheeks warm with shame, but won’t let go of his hand. He’s so human it pains her. She’s never seen – _felt_ – how different that made him, how much more precious, tangible, fragile; how absolutely _hers_ he is.

Anyone walking into the boss’ office would find an overly personal scene unfolding, too intimate for the office and too-long needed for it to happen any when else. It was an understanding that left them sore-hearted, perhaps bare, definitely open-eyed to each other. Thankfully, no one does walk in at all.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

It’s at a charity gala of her father’s company that they dance for the first time. There’s a lovely boy playing the violin and a handful of other musicians following his lead as the Doctor – not running away from all the suits and bowties wishing to shake his hand and ogle his lovely wife, no sir – takes her to the dance floor.

There’s a lively waltz being played as they take their places and he smirks conspiringly at her, clasps her hand tightly in his and holds her delightfully close.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she asks as he twirls and leads her about with peculiar ease.

“Absolutely,” he beams. “I may have invented the waltz, you know.”

She laughs at his boast, doing her best to keep up with the rapid rhythm, and reminds him fondly of dancing in the TARDIS to very different music.

“You were a terrible dancer then,” she confides, “stepped on my foot.”

He purses his lips thoughtfully. “It had been a while.”

It takes Rose a second or two to start giggling. He has to “What?” her three times before she explains. “In this… _body_ , I’m the first person you danced with.”

He arrests himself in the act of telling her about Reinette. Well, in _this_ body, he supposes,

“You’re my first,” he says with a smile so adorable she can’t help but kiss him.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

She’s been looking askance at him that day, reading some odd tomes at her desk during work hours, and he misses lunch in order to finish tinkering with a bit of a Slitheen teleporter that’s hopelessly broken after falling to Earth some fifty years ago, so he only gets a chance to ask her what the matter is while they wait for their food at a restaurant that night.

“Oh, ‘s nothing,” she says, but she’s fiddling with her hair, so something’s clearly up. He merely lifts his eyebrows at her and Rose bites her lower lip. “I’ve just been wondering ‘bout… psychic powers.”

“Psychic powers?”

“Yeah. Your people – Time Lords, I mean – were telepaths, right?”

“It was an ability most shared, yes,” he admits slowly, unsure where she is going with this. “I’ve always been rather bad at it, though. Never been able to bend a spoon by frowning at it.”

“But you could read minds, do some mind-melding thing, right?”

The Star Trek reference rather offends him. “ _Stablish connections_ , yes.”

“Can you still?”

She seems a bit too overeager, which ought to set him off, but he only holds her hand over the white table cloth. “You can tell me anything, Rose.”

“No,” she says sharply, then smiles belatedly. “Not with me. I was just wandering if… even with the walls between universes closed, if…”

Doctor Tyler sits back straighter and, in doing so, lets go of her hand. “I can’t feel him. Never could. Since he poured the regeneration energy into the ha– into _me_ … No. We’re not connected.”

He doesn’t ask her why she wanted to know. She, likewise, doesn’t approach the subject again.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Regeneration, though,” he says that night quite out of the blue, having given her the silent treatment for the better part of the evening after she’d asked about _him_.

Rose doesn’t immediately connect the two words with their previous conversation. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I can’t feel him, but it’s a bit like regeneration, only a split one, so…” he trails off, looking at the ceiling and not at her beside him, then shakes his head. “Who you are or what you’re doing – even how you’re feeling – can influence regeneration energy, you know?”

It’s dark in the room and she can see only his outline, can’t even judge from his tone of voice where this is going – or even coming from – she just wants to sleep and put away thoughts of Doctor _s_. “…Not really, no.”

“When I first became…” he makes a vague gesture, “Northern, was right after the Time War. Just as it ended, in fact. The final blast, it… I thought I’d die, but turns out one doesn’t get off easy eradicating one’s kind… No, whole new Doctor, whole new… everything.”

_Born in battle, full of blood, anger and revenge_ ; it all suddenly makes sense. “Couldn’t really tell,” she lies. “How long had it been when… when we met?”

He shrugs, but his voice catches. “Hundred years or so. I think. I wasn’t really… couldn’t really keep track. _But!_ Regeneration! Then there was _this_ me, the one you fancy!”

He shoulder-bumps her then, playfully. She almost smiles. “Yeah. And…?”

“And this me, Rose Tyler, came about to save you, _because_ of you.”

She does smile this time. “Born in love, were you?”

He twines their fingers, holds up her hand to kiss it. “Fittingly. And _me_ -me… _Well…_ ”

He turns to her fully, speaking low and ever closer to her face. “My last full Time Lord memory was of you – how supremely happy I was to see you, how much I wanted to get to you, to…” a deep breath, warm on her cheeks, eyelashes, “to never let you go. And then I was naked on the TARDIS floor, single heart hammering away and all I could think was _how do I save the universe so I can be with Rose Tyler again?_ ”

What breaks her heart the most – and makes the kiss they share taste of salt – is that he doesn’t get it. He loves her, yes, as much as _he_ does, but thing is, _he’s still out there_ , alone, all alone; that _his_ last thought had also been of her, that saving the universe for her had also been on his mind, that they were parted forever – _again_ – that he…

“Rose,” he says breaking the kiss, looking her intently in the eyes. “He won’t be alone.”

She exhales with a grimace. “…I thought you said you were bad at mind-melding.”

“Telepathy. I am. Also, not stupid. Could’ve heard your train of thought from the next galaxy over.”

Her response is to hide her face in his pyjama-clad chest. He strokes her hair and tells her of The Library, of a woman in a spacesuit who had his sonic screwdriver and knew his name. Rose shivers.

“He’ll get _married?_ ” she asks, as if inquiring about a venereal disease. “ _Him?_ ”

“Well,” he shrugs. “She seemed to think I was immature. Maybe… next regeneration? I really don’t know.”

Rose snorts. “Immature. Can’t think why she’d say that.”

“Oi!” he says, getting her pillow and hitting her playfully with it. “Who are you calling ‘immature’?”

She steals his own pillow from beneath him and hits him back.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

She’s acting strange again.

It sounds unhealthy now that he thinks about it, but they have been hardly apart since coming to this universe, and now that she’s insisted on going to the shops by herself, won’t tell him what for and has been shut in the bathroom for fifteen minutes – he thought they had got past this whole awkward “to lock or not to lock the door when using the toilet” – he’s frankly worried.

“Rose?” he calls, knocking on the door. “Everything alright, love?”

Oh, that’s new. Calling her “love”. He rather likes it.

“…Yeah,” she says. There’s a flush, sound of running water, and she opens the door with a plastered-on smile. “Dandy. Shall we go?”

“Are you sure?” he pushes, gently holding her by the waist, looking at her intently. “You _do_ know you can tell me if it isn’t, don’t you?”

She bites her lower lip, then hugs him. “It’s nothing. I just… Oh, wait!” she says suddenly drawing back, index finger tapping his nose, then lifting his right hand up. “Say, how _much_ of you do you reckon is still Time Lord? Ten per cent? Twenty? Or is it a half thing?”

There again. Strange. He crosses his arms. “Twenty. Eighteen point seventy-six, more like. DNA-wise, I’m a biological impossibility, but the mostly-human physique helps. _Why?_ ”

She seems to be munching over “biological impossibility” as her calculated smile only grows. “Just wondering. I’m science-y now, I wonder at things. Say, would it be weird if we ran some tests?”

Which surprises him, to be honest. “Tests? Science-y?”

“That a yes?”

“Well, I suppose–“

“Great!”

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

She’s making tea when he storms into the kitchen wild-eyed. “An _interview?!_ ”

Rose shrugs. “Well, we’ve been out in public a lot, and ‘Vitex heiress marries unknown alien’ is a rather ominous headline, innit? I just thought we could get this over with before _more_ questions are asked.”

“Vitex _heiress?_ ” he says quite disgusted. Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth, the most amazing woman ever, a mere heiress? Insulting, she knows, and offers him a wan smile.

“Just go with it. For me.”

“And what am I supposed to tell them? John Smith, doctor of nothing-in-particular, living off your father’s fortune, working for a secret organization nobody’s supposed to know about?”

The smile turns playful, like she’s waiting for a crowd to jump from behind the sofa and scream “Surprise!” She gives him a tray full of cucumber sandwiches and tells him not to worry, she’d asked for “the person who usually reports Torchwood business”, and to please be presentable in half an hour, she would be there soon.

He’s still grumpy about it twenty-nine minutes later, when Rose leaves his side on the couch to go open the front door. His second clue that something is going on is _her_ surprised exclamation, but it’s only his turn to be completely, absolutely baffled thirty seconds later, when Sarah Jane Smith walks into the living room.

“Doctor Tyler,” she greets him amicably, quite professionally too, some part of his brain notices. “My name is–“

“Sarah Jane.”

The smile turns even friendlier. “Rose has mentioned me, then. Good. I hope you don’t mind, I brought my new assistant with me, she’s only just started but has been most helpful with shorthand note taking.”

And there, just by the doorway, with Rose – looking quite baffled herself, that oddly logic side of his brain notices – is none other than Donna Noble.

The Doctor is transfixed for a few too many heartbeats, they are all he can hear for a while, but Rose soon sees the grin cracking his face with tiny happy wrinkles – round the eyes, mouth, lifting eyebrows that had been too heavy lately, giving him a lightness in his step she hasn’t seen in the longest time as he crosses the room to shake Donna’s hand most heartily, and then sits down for his interview. She only watches and occasionally nods as he tells them _everything_ ; she can only hope Sarah Jane can make up something publishable later.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

He wakes up with severe chest pain that night, and Rose sees their lives flash before her eyes. The thought she might lose him – this fragile, beautiful, _dreadfully human_ him! – has her feeling her own chest constrict in the nanosecond it takes for his words to sink in.

“Ambulance! We need–“

“Not that kinda pain,” he says through gritted teeth. “’S like I can’t– shouldn’t–“

“What?!”

“ _Exist_.”

She holds him as he pants disconnected bits of despair – _time ticking wrong, gaping hole, shifts to fix, needs fixing,_ now – until he at last asks her “Can you hear it, too?”

“Hear what?”

“Cloister Bell.”

Cloister Bell. _TARDIS_. “But– why are you in pain? What–?”

Doctor Tyler’s eyes are wide. “He’s done something. Something he should never, ever have done.”

“But why are _you_ feeling it? What has he done? You said you two weren’t linked!”

“Well,” he glares at her, “ _apparently_ we are!”

He keeps breathing uneasily for what feels like ages, calming down eventually. He says only “Adelaide Brooke.”

“…Who?”

“Something about Adelaide Brooke, space pioneer of the human race. Like my memories about her, about her story have… changed.”

And all the dots connect. “But if she was a pioneer or something, she’d be important, right? Too important to mess with. Think that’s what he’s done?”

“Changing fixed time,” he looks at her then, and she registers both that he looks like he’s just run a thousand miles with a Dalek fleet upon his heels, and that he looks inordinately fond of her. “Could’ve created a paradox that tore the universe apart. It’s what becomes of me without you. No one to disappoint, no rules, no purpose.”

“He’s still alone then,” she says tearing up. “And he’s going mad because of it.”

“Oh, Rose,” he hugs her tightly, his voice so empty it nearly breaks her. “I’ve always been a mad man in a box. It was only ever you who made that madness into something good.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

It turns out Donna has been married twice, widowed once and had left her second husband because she could no longer abide staying at home taking care of little Amelia by herself. She and her ginger daughter share a house with her granddad in London – Wilf had been a high-ranking officer during the War, the Nobles are very well off, but Donna refused to settle down. She travelled the world as soon as she was old enough to – met first husband Shaun in Australia, where he died two years later of a spider bite, and second husband Lee in Fiji – and had only recently stopped in order to have her baby girl. Hausfrau-ing had been too boring, though, much like Lee after a while, so she gave up on both and decided to try her hand at journalism – she has always had a knack for typing real quickly, and Sarah Jane makes it sound like something that could actually make the world better.

“Amazing,” Doctor Tyler says, looking positively delighted. “Good for you, Donna Noble. Good for you.”

“Is your story true, though?” she asks sheepishly, drinking her tea thoughtfully. “A whole other universe, with a whole other _me_ , and I used to travel with you?”

“Yes.”

“But if you’re here now, what’s happened to the other me?”

His sunny expression clouds. “You’re back with your family. I’ve no doubt Wilf will see to it that you get a brilliant future.”

Her smile is small as she takes his hand. “Then why are you so sad?”

He doesn’t, or can’t, answer, though Rose can hear it in the way he grinds his teeth. _Because, Donna Noble, you were once the most important woman in the whole of creation; you were brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and you can never know about it_.

“I also believe it, you know,” she tells him later, after Donna leaves. “That her granddad will look after her. That she will be happy.”

He wishes he could likewise reassure her, say the same of _him_. That much, however, he dares not lie.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

She wears long-sleeved pyjamas despite the rather warm temperature in the room. Lying on the bed, he immediately puts down his book and asks “Everything alright?”

She smiles rather nervously. “Yeah, ‘course. I just… Aunt Flo’s come and all that,” she says smoothing wrinkles on her clothes and blushing.

It takes him longer than it should to register her meaning. “ _Oh_. You’re–“

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” A pause. And math. He used to be good at math. “But… now?”

“Yeah,” she repeats, lying down beside him with arms crossed protectively over her chest. “Makes no sense. I figured the Dimensional Canon would mess with me, you know, physically, but–“

“Rose,” he interrupts, turning to her with overly alert eyes. “We’ve been in this universe for _months_. Together, for the vast majority of that time. As in, _together_ -together.”

She puffs out air, frustrated. “ _I know_. And according to all those tests we did you’re _normal_ , I don’t know why I’m not–“

She chokes on the word though, and he holds her. “I didn’t realise you wanted that. It. He. Or she. Sorry, I–“

“I didn’t either. Don’t know that I do. It’s just… I was so late that I just figured…” Another pause. “It scared me to death, but at the same time I was…”

“Yeah?”

“… _Happy_.” She looks up at him, eyes also overly bright. “Is it weird? Too weird?”

Despite the muscle that coils in agony at the base of his skull, he grins at her. “Oh, _Rose_ ,” he beams before giving her a ravishing kiss.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

It’s Sunday morning, quite the lazy one at that, and Doctor Tyler has a cold.

“Look at you, swaddled in blankets in front of the telly,” Rose says fondly, giving him a steaming mug of tea with honey.

He mumbles something about her cruelty that delights in his suffering, but Rose just laughs. Jackie once told her men always think they are dying when they have colds; it appears Doctor Tyler is no exception.

She busies herself with Christmas decorations for the apartment – they’re spending Christmas Day with her parents and brother, but plan on coming back home for the evening – and finds her husband decidedly worse once she’s done.

“You’re burning up,” she says looking for a thermometer, but stops when he motions for her to get closer.

“It’s… like _that,_ again.”

“Like what?”

“Like the… chest pain, only…” he huffs, tired, eyes too bright. “…worse”

She freezes. “Worse how? Worse for you or for _him_?”

“Can you hear it, Rose?” he asks, not looking at her. “The Ood are singing…”

She calls the hospital, where they end up treating him, unaccountably, for radiation poisoning. She stays with him throughout and wipes away his tears once he is, unexpectedly and inexplicably, better.

He turns his eyes to her. Clear, lucid; no more song. “Rose.”

“I’m here, Doctor. What happened?”

“Dunno. He feels… gone. Like it’s just me in my head now. Funny thing is, I never realised it _wasn’t_ just me in my head…”

Rose’s stomach churns. “He’s _gone?_ Not…?”

He shakes his head slowly, about to fall asleep. “New Year, new me, it seems.”

She falls quiet, lets him rest. Something about New Year’s, though nothing she can place. As long as Doctor Tyler is all right, though, she can’t bring herself to care.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

He gets discharged on the first day of snow, with orders to stay away from temporal abnormalities and other-self-nesses. Doctor Tyler thanks the medical team and assures them he’ll do his best.

Rose takes him skating – or, rather, he can’t stand being cooped up a second longer and they end up putting _all_ their coats on in order to go out, stumble upon a new ice skating rink and don’t leave for two hours. The exercise helps with the cold, but Rose is still shivering when they put their shoes back on.

“Hot chocolate?” he offers, and she nods enthusiastically.

They walk to her favourite café and then wander the shops until it gets dark. It’s been a lovely day, a beautiful, snowy, Rose-filled day, and he’s happy, light as he doesn’t remember ever being; like they’re no longer haunted, like now that _he_ is gone, they are finally and truly…

“What are you grinning about?” she asks as she combs snowflakes out of his hair with her fingers.

He mimics her, running his fingers through her blond hair and committing to memory every speck of perfection that makes up Rose Tyler – then pulls her to him and crushes his lips to hers like he’ll die if he doesn’t. She answers in kind, and this time it feels different. More intimate. Better. Nicer. Good. Like something is _finally_ sliding into place.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

 “Do you remember our first Christmas?”

He looks away from the window and back at Rose huddled under the blankets in front of the fire. Outside it’s snowing rather heavily, it’s colder in the parallel universe than back at Earth, and his Rose seems particularly bothered by it.

“You mean Cardiff with Charles Dickens, or that big ugly spaceship over London and my ill-timed post-regeneration nap?” he smiles at her. “Hard to forget either.”

She takes a sip of hot chocolate. “I meant after that. Christmas dinner and paper crowns, that sort of stuff.”

_Him holding her hand, picking out stars to visit, grinning until their cheeks hurt._

“I wanted to kiss you then,” the Doctor confesses coming to sit beside her. “Blamed it on regeneration wackiness. Too many sensations, too many emotions. When you gave me your hand, it… grounded me. Always has. And I loved you for it.”

Her eyes are tearing up, but she’s smiling. He must’ve said something right because she reaches for the lapels of his bathrobe and pulls him for a sloppy, delightful kiss. “Just then?” she asks coyly.

He shrugs. “First time you held my hand and ran with me,” he says holding her hand with his right, the one fully Time Lord part of him, “I loved you. And every time you smiled, I loved you more. And this human heart, Rose…” he hesitates, places her hand over his chest. “Sometimes I fear it won’t work, won’t be enough; how can a single heart love you as much – _more_ – than my two did?”

She’s so overwhelmed by the warmth in his eyes that she cannot help spilling the mug of hot chocolate and losing herself in him, fully, completely, like she should have done a thousand times before, like she should have done every time he touched her. For the first time since that damned beach and his fading projection, she means every word of love that passes her lips.

 

 

 


End file.
